Thanks to a grant from the Latino Community Foundation and California Arts Council, Women Who Submit is offering free workshops in poetry, creative nonfiction, fiction, screenwriting, and hybrid social justice writing to local and chapter members during the month of July. The 2024 WWS Summer Writers Workshop seeks to build access to expensive and competitive summer workshop programs by offering a remote alternative focused on building community amongst our writers in order to help them prepare work for submission.
The 2024 WWS Summer Writers Workshop is one part of the 2024 WWS Summer Series. The full series includes the WWS Summer Writers Workshop in July, the WWS Submission Conference on August 10, 2024 at Plaza de la Raza, and the “Submit 1” submission drive on September 14, 2024. WWS works to increase confidence amongst our writers by guiding them through the revision and submission processes with mentorship and fellowship.
While each facilitator is given freedom on how they structure their time and space, all workshops will stray away from the Iowa model, and instead work to implement alternatives forms of feedback found in such places as the Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process, Felicia Rose Chavez’s The Anti-Racist Writing Workhop, Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobriographical Novel, and Matthew Salesses’ Craft in the Real World.
Workshops
The 2024 WWS Summer Writers Workshop includes four weekly, three-hour Zoom sessions in the month of July and one mandatory introductory Zoom session on Sunday, June 30th from 1pm-2:30pm Pacific for a total of 13.5 hours.
Creative Nonfiction Workshop
Food Writing: A Survey with Esther Tseng
Time: Tuesdays, 4:30pm-7:30pm Pacific / 7:30pm-10:30pm Eastern
Dates: 6/30 at 1pm Pacific (intro session), 7/2, 7/9, 7/16, 7/23
Description: Learn about the different kinds of food writing and what makes the great stand out from the rest. We’ll read a few articles and stories written by established authors, construct pitches for landing your own and hone your voice to be the best writer you can be.
Fiction Workshop
REVISION: seeing (and hearing) your short fiction differently by playing with process with Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera
Time: Mondays, 5:30pm-8:30pm Pacific / 8:30pm-11:30pm Eastern
Dates: 6/30 at 1pm Pacific (intro session), 7/8, 7/15, 7/22, 7/29
Description: We have all likely heard that writing is a process. How does that process look for you? What strategies have you used to make your story better? Which steps or activities in the process do you struggle with most? Which ones do enjoy? Together we will embark on the journey of RE-visioning a story for publication. Specific craft talks and activities will be designed in response to the needs of participants’ drafts. We will look at draft to publication examples (two of mine and two from DRAFT: The Journal of Process) and identify strategies used in the revision process. We will, if needed, discuss writer’s block and revision bias. You will RE-examine your own drafts in different ways, prepare a revised story for small group feedback, participate in and reflect on the RE-vision process. In the final class we will share other revision resources and submission practices.
Poetry Workshop
Push It! Going Beyond Our Comfort Zones with Bridgette Bianca
Time: Tuesdays, 5pm-8pm Pacific / 8pm-11pm Eastern
Dates: 6/30 at 1pm Pacific (intro session), 7/9, 7/16, 7/23, 7/30
Description: This workshop will encourage poets to step outside of their comfort zones, established routines, and go-to stylistic choices. Attendees will have an opportunity to interrogate and challenge what they hold to be true about their craft as individuals and as a community of poets. While testing and pushing their boundaries in the workshop setting, they will generate new work that will surprise them and open up new spaces for their creativity to blossom.
Screenwriting Workshop
SCREENWRITING: How to Write a Short Film with Colette Freedman
Time: Wednesdays, 1pm-4pm Pacific / 4pm-7pm Eastern
Dates: 6/30 at 1pm Pacific (intro session), 7/3, 7/10, 7/17, 7/24
Description: Do you love movies? Then it’s time to learn how to write your own. Discover the building blocks of visual story telling and everything you need to know about dialogue, characters, world building, formatting and more.
Hybrid Writing / Generative
HYBRID/GENERATIVE: Writing Into the Ephemera: Exploring Hybrid Writing With Found Texts with Taz Ahmed
Time: Tuesdays, 4:00pm-7:00pm Pacific / 7:00pm-10:00pm Eastern
Dates: 6/30 at 1pm Pacific (intro session), 7/2, 7/9, 7/16, 7/23
Description: Are you the type of person that wanders through vintage stores or photo archives and wonders what the story behind each item could be? Do you have a box of found objects and paper scraps that you are saving for that one project some day? In this generative four-week workshop we will use found paper ephemera as the jumping off point of spark creativity. During our time together we will explore tactile paper crafting and collaging to create “found” writing in different hybrid writing styles and modalities. We will explore prose, poetry, braided essays, and scripts through conventional and unconventional writing exercises. The focus on the workshop will be to play through experimentation and is for writers of all level seeking inspiration and motivation.
Participants
Each workshop will have a maximum of 8 participants. Participants will need to apply for a position in the workshop. Applications will include a writing sample, but acceptance is not based on the sample as all levels are welcome. Priority will be given to those who can commit to all five sessions. Other considerations for acceptance may include writers who have not had an opportunity to attend a summer writing workshop prior to this and the vibrancy of the narratives.
This workshop is free and open to WWS-LA and WWS Chapter members. For writers not residing in the west coast, please be mindful that while an online classroom means people can join from any location, most facilitators are working from the Pacific time zone.
Writing Sample Guidelines
Writing samples may be used in workshop for feedback from the facilitator and participants. The writing sample will not affect the selection process. Sending samples early will help WWS create workshop packets and materials. Be sure to submit work you’d like feedback on.
Creative Nonfiction: Submit a draft of a creative nonfiction essay that is 2000-4000 words as a .doc, .docx, or PDF. Please use Times New Roman 12 pt font, double space, and number pages in the footer. Do not include a separate title page but author name at the top left corner of the first page (not in header).
Fiction: Submit a DRAFT of a short story that is 3,000-7,500 words as a .doc, .docx, or PDF. This should be a story in its early stages, one you want community support for revising and developing for publication. Please use Times New Roman 12 pt font, double space, and number pages in the footer. Do not include a separate title page but author name at the top left corner of the first page (not in header).
Poetry: Poetry samples are to be 5-7 pages and saved as a .doc, .docx, or PDF. There is to be no more than one poem per page, and a new poem is to begin on a new page. Longer poems are accepted as long as the entire sample is 7 pages or less. Please use Times New Roman and size 12 font.
Screenwriting: Submit a draft of a 10 minute scene, play, or script that is 8-12 pages as a .doc, .docx, or PDF. Please use Times New Roman 12 pt font and number pages in the footer. Do not include a separate title page but author name at the top left corner of the first page (not in header).
Hybrid: 3 examples of hybrid writing or mixed media images. Samples are to be 1-2 pages or images and saved as a .doc, .docx, jpg, or PDF.
Deadline
Applications must be submitted by April 24, 2024 at 11:59 Pacific.
Notification of acceptance will be sent by May 15, 2024.
Submit your application as a Google form HERE.
About Faculty
Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed is a political strategist, storyteller, and artist based in Los Angeles. She creates at the intersection of counternarratives and culture-shifting as a South Asian American Muslim 2nd-gen woman. She’s turned out over 500,000 Asian American voters, recorded five years of the award winning #GoodMuslimBadMuslim podcast and made #MuslimVDay cards annually. Her essays are published in the anthologies, New Moons, Pretty Bitches, Whiter, Good Girls Marry Doctors, Love Inshallah, and in numerous online publications. She’s published poetry collections Emdash and Ellipses (2016) & The Day The Moon Split in Two (2020), is featured in Tia Chucha’s Coiled Serpent (2016) and her poetry has been commissioned by the Center for Cultural Power, PolicyLink, the Garment Worker Center, KPCC’s Unheard LA, and more. In July 2023, her first solo visual art show “Aunties with Deadly Stare” was exhibited at LA Artcore and her art is currently on display at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in the Acts of Faith exhibit. A protest sign she designed for the 2017 Women’s March sits in the permanent archives of the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Her latest poetry collection “Grasping At This Planet Just to Believe” will be published April 2024 with Writ Large Projects.
bridgette bianca is a poet and professor from South Central Los Angeles. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English from Howard University and her Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Otis College of Art & Design. Her first book of poetry, be/trouble, was released by Writ Large Projects in 2020. bridgette bianca has been featured in Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, sin cesar (formerly Dryland), and Cultural Daily. She has also performed on several stages, including the LA Times Festival of Books, House of Blues: Anaheim, The World Stage, Southern California Poetry Festival, LitFest Pasadena, and Beyond Baroque. When she is not reading her work, she hosts workshops and other events around the city. Recently, she joined forces with poet, artist, and activist GusTavo Guerra Vasquez to form the literary curating team South Central Spits Fire. Find her online at bridgettebianca.com.
Colette Freedman is an internationally produced playwright, screenwriter and novelist. Her play Sister Cities has been produced around the country and internationally, including Paris, Rome, and Australia. She also wrote the novel and the film, which stars Jacki Weaver and Alfred Molina. She has authored ten books and is currently working on her eleventh. In collaboration with New York Times best-selling author Michael Scott, she wrote the thriller The Thirteen Hallows (Tor/Macmillan). Her other novels include The Affair and The Consequences (Kensington), Anomalies with Sadie Turner (Select Books), and I Wrote That One, Too with Steve Dorff (Backbeat Books). She also wrote the film And Then There Was Eve which won best feature at the LA Film Festival 2017, and co-produced the film Quality Problems, which won several film festivals. Her film Miles Underwater is currently in post-production, and her film 7,000 Miles starring Wendie Malick about Amelia Earhart, is currently on the 2023/2024 festival circuit. She has produced and co-written over a dozen Lifetime thrillers with Brooke Purdy. Colette has several scripts in development, including Joint Venture, Scattering Rachel, and The Last Bookstore, which won Grand Prize at the CWA awards, We Screenplay’s Diverse Voices, Best SciFi Feature Action on Film, and Richmond International Film Festival. Currently, her musical Serial Killer Barbie (Heuer Publishing) is gearing up for a tour of New Zealand, and Mozart the Musical, which she conceived of with Tegan Summer, had a sold-out run at Carnegie Hall in March 2023 and is opening in London in July 2024. A top Hollywood script doctor and ghostwriter, Colette is also a professor at NYFA, Antioch University and Studio Arts which she teaches screenwriting, playwriting and novel writing.
Chicana Feminist and former Rodeo Queen, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera (she/her) writes so the desert landscape of her childhood can be heard as loudly as the urban chaos of her adulthood. A former high school teacher, she earned an MFA at Antioch University and a PhD at USC. Her short stories have been anthologized and nominated for awards. Her play Blind Thrust Fault was featured in Center Theater Group Writers’ Workshop Festival. Her YA novel, Breaking Pattern, is available from Inlandia Books. She is a Macondista and works for literary equity through Women Who Submit.
Esther Tseng has been a freelance writer for over 15 years. After coming up during the blogging heyday of the internet, she started writing for the LA tourism board, then for other online publications, newspapers and magazines. She has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Saveur and more. Esther is an Academy Chair for World’s 50 Best Bars and has served as a judge for The James Beard Foundation.